Fonseca criticises Milan for being ‘weak defensively’, making ‘wrong decisions’ and not following plan | OneFootball

AC Milan head coach Paulo Fonseca has claimed that his side did not follow what they were told to do during their Champions League defeat against Liverpool.

There is no doubting that the pressure on Fonseca and his team is mounting after just five games of the new season, given that they have so far yielded just one win and nine goals conceded in total.

The latest disappointment came tonight in front of a crowd of less than 60,000 at San Siro, something which was partly due to the high ticket prices but also because the beginning of the campaign has not gone to plan.

The fans who did show up needed reassuring and they did not get many positives barring Christian Pulisic’s goal three minutes into the game. Ibrahima Konate and Virgin Van Dijk each scored from corners, and Dominik Szoboszlai netted in the second half.

Fonseca spoke to Skyafter the game to assess what was another difficult night for his team, with his comments relayed by Football Italia.

How do you judge the game?

“We played against Liverpool, who are a huge team. We started well, both attacking and defending, but then we conceded two goals from set plays that changed the game.

“We lost our mental balance, because when the team lacks confidence, we develop problems and don’t do what we prepared in training. I told the players, you cannot make those mistakes in this kind of game.

“At the same time, I have to admit Liverpool are more of a team right now than we are, we need to keep working to have not 20 good minutes, but 70, 80, 90 minutes playing our football. After we conceded the second goal, the team stopped playing, and it becomes difficult after that.”

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Did your side follow the plan, considering the goals conceded from set-pieces?

“The first goal was individual marking, we prepared that on their central defenders. That was the plan anyway. It was something we prepared in the little time that we had, try to put Leao against their right-back. We did it once or twice in the match. What we prepared was to send Rafa one-on-one against him and we hardly did it.”

Do you have any further response to Boban, who thinks you should play a 4-3-3?

“I respect everyone’s opinion. I think we can play with a few different formations, but we are too weak defensively, poor in individual duels and making the wrong decisions.

“I am trying to find the best characteristics of our midfielders. Loftus can be a 10 or an 8, Reijnders is not someone who can play next to Fofana. We are not playing 4-3-3, there are always three including Pulisic who cut inside.

“I think we had three or four good situations in the first half with Loftus and Pulisic, but we got the final ball wrong. This is a structure that I like with two in midfield, with Reijnders, Loftus and Pulisic combining, that is where we created the most dangerous situations.”